Who Cares About Sick Toads?

Well, actually - we do!
Yes, we're serious.
No, we're not mad hatters!

There have been reports over the years about toads which have been found ill and dead but not much is known about this. Toads with deformities have also popped up and some have been found in Far North Queensland with full and partial third arms. Additionally, ever since the new presumably fungal disease arrived in July 2002, we have been receiving reports that toad numbers have greatly reduced and even disappeared entirely from some patchy areas. The latest disease problem to arrive is what we currently call the "Redlynch virus" and this affects toads so intensely that we can't even keep the tadpoles alive in captivity for more than a week and the vast majority of infected ones collected die before we even get them out of the collection containers..

Even though cane toads are a pest here, they are still amphibians and, if something in the environment is making them sick or causing deformities, we need to find out what it is and whether it might also be threatening Australian frogs. So the Cairns Frog Hospital asks anyone in Australia who finds a sick or deformed toad to collect it and turn it in to us for examination and testing.

Some of the symptoms a sick toad might have are: (the toad only needs to have just one of the symptoms on this list to contact us)

• toad is out in the open during the day
• toad is out at night but makes no attempt to move away when you approach and, conversely, flattens itself to the ground when you reach it
• total loss of body weight (walking skeleton look)
• colouration goes very dark to completely black
• blindness or cloudiness in one or both eyes
• one or both eyes goes blue
• skin gets a very dry, peeling look and starts to flake off
• pale patches appear on the limbs (see photo) which might also be accompanied by dark sheets of rough skin hanging off
• body colour looks 'washed out' from normal to such an extent, markings are faint
• any open sores or ulcers on the skin anywhere on the body
• loss of use of the legs
• white fluid leaking out of the paratoid glands for no apparent reason (the swollen area behind the eyes - if any fluid is leaking, DO NOT TOUCH IT with your bare hands - use gloves or a plastic bag to pick up the toad)
• toad appears to have a wet look to the skin (toads are normally dry like leather)
• when looking at the toad's abdomen behind the arms, the toad appears to be breathing very rapidly and heavily and has a saggy area just in front of the rear legs

Some of the deformities that have been observed so far are:

• extra arm protruding from the chest, functional or not
• two right arms
• toes growing out of other toes
• no toes on an arm
• arm from the elbow joint downwards is the wrong direction
• a foot is missing and the end of the calf bone is a splayed bone like the butttress root of a fig tree
• calf bone is bent or curled at the end with no foot
• a clear eyeball (no contents inside the eye)
• one eye is noticeably smaller than the other or both eyes are much smaller than normal size eyeballs

Many people have told us they don't turn in toads because they are concerned we might be looking after them and releasing them back to the wild after recovery. This is not the case - we want them for disease surveillance purposes.

If you should see any sick or deformed toads, please contact us for instructions.

Last updated: March. 10th, 2006